Shvartza Wolf, please explain your previous remarks where you wrote:
“[Responding to ‘Health’]:
B. You say “Rabbi, Dr. Lander A’H, is the one whom instituted all policies in any Touro school. These are all acc. to Halacha. The school carries on his tradition to this day.”
First, this is blatantly false. Second, as he is no longer president, I’m not sure why he’s relevant. You say that “[t]he school carries on his tradition to this day”, but I’m not sure what that means.
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I have many friends who attended (respectively) both Touro and YU. I never heard of any violations of halacha at Touro. Yet you seem to claim this to be the case when you wrote “blatantly false”. How so? Please explain.
Also, you write that since Rabbi Dr. Lander Z”L is no longer president that you’re “not sure why he’s relevant” and, at the same time, you admit you’re not sure what “carries on his tradition” means. Might one explain the other?
His philosophy of allowing a Ben Torah (and also a Bas Melech) to acquire a college education without compromising on his (or her) Torah values seems to continue in Touro despite Rabbi Dr. Lander having passed away. That would make him relevant. And that is probably what it means.
As for YU/MO:
The typical line I hear from current YU students, when asked about a given YU/MO affront to our holy Torah, is that the students don’t care for that nonsense and they are instead interested in learning and a quality degree.
That includes the Catholic Cardinals’ visit, Crosses blazing in the reflected lights, to the Beis Midrash for some good ‘ol bittul Torah (and assorted other issurim that came along for the ride). Or more recently, about the toeivah rally.
I do believe my acquaintances that they are sincere in that reasoning, and they certainly seem like good Bnei Torah who are kovei ittim, et al. and that they truly do have no interest in these travesties.
But the latest Beacon story, unlike the Toeivah rally, is, in my opinion, much worse than the toeivah rally and the Cardinals’ visit. As written, it portrays a gross lack of sensitivity to, and Chashivus of, the Torah on the part of both the writer and the editors of that publication. (I don’t mean to judge them personally, CH”V, as they are all likely tonikos shenishbu to a very large extent.) This is unlike the Toeivah rally (and letters by those struggling with this issue) where they claim they were trying to be understanding and caring, working within the Torah’s values, even if they were misguided as Rabbi M. Twersky clearly explained.
(In truth, other YU papers have written things that are highly inappropriate and convey the same lack of chashivus, but to a far lesser degree, with HaMevaser coming in a fairly competitive second place after the Beacon. Yet people contaminate the sanctity of shuls with Hamevaser editions, Hashem Yiracheim)
Whatever struggle(s) the author of that article was dealing with, there was no excuse to glorify the experience of violating BiMeizid (and, as written, seemingly BiSimcha, too!) a number of issurim chamurim including one of the “big 3”. Again, no excuse to write it like that. At least in the Toeivah articles, it is written in the context of them wishing they could be like everyone else, etc., how much of a struggle they have, and not how, CH”V, excited they would be to violate issurim chamurim as in the Beacon story. On the other hand, a (valid) point in the Beacon story could have been made by glossing over much of the terrible occurrence and then explaining the experience to have been empty and regrettable after all that, in addition to the aveiros committed.
In other words, the aveirah/aveiros, terrible as it is/they are, is/are not so much the concern to others, as people do stumble, CH”V, and that’s why Hashem graced us with the gift of Teshuva. So confessing to a student newspaper, while perhaps anyways not appropriate in the final analysis, is not what is shocking. But the writer’s glorification of committing one of (speaking of Cardinals) the 3 “cardinal” aveiros is inexcusable and shocking, even for MO (who proudly ignore their own Rav’s (as in Rav JBS) words that “the greater they can distance themselves from culture the **better** they are for it” and instead whose students proudly proclaim that, for example, it must be muttar to go to a Broadway show because everyone does it and that Kol Isha and other issurim must not apply).
So it is not so much the halachic concerns that arise. Because those can be avoided (if you care to). But it’s the attitude and hashkafa that holds secular culture to be, not in the running with, or even on par with, but (de facto if not de jure) outright *trumping*, our holy Torah, CH”V and the resultant matir issurim that accompany that belief, denials to the contrary not withstanding. Breathing in that air is poisonous to the soul and is the biggest travesty of that ideology no matter how much learning goes on anywhere.
(At least Conservative Jewry claims they can make up and discard what they please, and Reform and Reconstructionist do not claim any fidelity to Torah MiSinai. So if they were to engage in such behavior then it would not reflect on their being Jews and would be a simple reflection on the decrepit society and culture they are surrounded with. But regarding one who claims to be anything-orthodox, it most certainly does reflect on their being Jews and this is a terrible chilul Hashem.)